Morning Brief 4.15.20: Paytm adds payment scale to esports

The information you need to start your day, from PaymentsSource and around the web:

JV game

Paytm's gaming division has entered a venture with Esports Players League to run digital sports tournaments, hoping to fill a void as sports and other entertainment venues are closed during the coronavirus outbreak.

The venture is selling itself to amateur gamers with an option to become professionals, according to VentureBeat, which adds the joint venture will start with competitions in Asia.

Paytm's gaming unit has more than 500,000 daily users, and has jumped more than 200% in usage over the past month.

Bloomberg News

Still thinking about Libra

Regulators are still considering how to police Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency, which hasn't yet been introduced.

The Financial Stability Board is telling regulators to study existing standards to ensure coverage for international stablecoins, which would include Libra, reports Coindesk.

The FSB is concerned that existing stablecoin rules don't consider Facebook's scale, and potential risks to national payment systems from operational malfunctions or sudden spikes of funds in or out of stablecoins.

Underground marketplace

Online marketplace Quidd suffered a data breach in 2019, resulting in the exposure of about 4 million users.

These users' credentials are being shared on hacking forums, reports ZDNet, explaining the information includes usernames, email addresses and hashed account passwords. All of this information could be used for additional hacks and payment fraud.

Advertisements for the Quidd information have been on hacking forums for as long as six months, ZDNet said.

Mobile money

U.K. fintech Phos has raised about $2 million to fund technology that allows Android handsets to act as mobile point of sale terminals.

Bulgarian VC New Vision 3 led the investment, bringing Phos' total to about $4 million, according to Finextra.

Phos, which recently started a four-week test of its technology with Mastercard, uses Paynetics as the acquiring institution, has a network of about 200 merchants for the pilot.

UK Bans Use Of Credit Cards To Pay For GamblingFORBES | Tue April 14, 2020From Tuesday, gamblers in the UK can no longer use credit cards to pay for bets. The move has been welcomed because online gambling has increased during the coronavirus lockdown.

How coronavirus can ease pressure on crypto paymentsCentral banks are releasing trillions of dollars to bolster economies through the coronavirus pandemic, giving rise to a pair of trends that could push merchants and consumers to embrace digital currencies as a mainstream payment alternative.

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